Epic Photos of The Protest That Shut Down Bay Bridge

This past Sunday, Black Lives Matter protesters stopped traffic on the westbound upper deck of the Bay Bridge,  painting #BLM in large yellow letters on the road, backing up cars for miles. A total of 29 people were arrested and five cars were towed.

There was a lot of footage from helicopters and drones, but protest was captured directly on the bridge by photographer Chris Tuite who shared his images with Funcheap

 

View this post on Instagram

 

“And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.” – David Bowie Holy hell! Today was absolute insanity. A protest starting at Treasure Island planned a meetup with one from the West Oakland BART Station to shut down the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco. What was a peaceful demonstration with signs and messages being written on the bridge, turned when CHP came barging on like military fighting on foreign soil. It escalated into protesters being put into choke holds, slammed onto the pavement and arrested. After the first was arrested, one of the organizers offered to clear the entire bridge if they let him go. Instead, CHP elected to trap everyone on the bridge and intimidate with intention of arresting them all as vans were brought in for transport. Instead of being reasonable by releasing the first protester and deescalating, it resulted in nearly 2 hours of dead stop on the bridge, cars being towed and a lady having to give birth on the bridge. The excessive force chosen and threats (including threats to myself twice while shooting) during this situation is exactly what all of these protests are about. I’ve been around covering these for over 2 weeks now including the Golden Gate Bridge shutdown and SFPD has handled these situations very reasonably and with respect and while letting the protestors do their thing for the most part. What happened today was not acceptable. These people deserve better.

A post shared by Chris Tuite (@christuitephoto) on Jun 15, 2020 at 12:35am PDT

Raw Footage of Bay Bridge Protest (6/14/20)

Protesters’ News Conference after Bay Bridge Arrest